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Is there a penalty for a high unsubscribe rate?

by RonnyRaygun
17 replies
So I'm finally biting this bullet, and entering the email marketing space.

Most of the courses, content, etc that I've gone through talk about ways to minimize the unsubscribe rate. Is there a reason for that other than keeping people on your list?

My thinking is, if the person doesn't want to hear from you, give them a way out, they won't buy from you anyway.

Thoughts?
#high #penalty #rate #unsubscribe
  • Profile picture of the author belgianguy
    There is no penalty for having a high unsubscribe rate. Yes, you should offer them an unsubscribe link so they can opt out whenever they want to, but that is not what they are talking about in the courses you have read.
    What they mean is: minimize your unsubscribe rate by offering great value to your subscribers. This way you'll keep more subscribers and because of the value you have offered them, they will probably buy the stuff you promote.
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  • Profile picture of the author Bruce Wedding
    My thought is, you're worrying about stuff that hasn't even happened. Why not think about how to build the list and start doing the things to make it happen and quit thinking about the things that haven't.
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  • Profile picture of the author Rod Cortez
    Originally Posted by RonnyRaygun View Post

    So I'm finally biting this bullet, and entering the email marketing space.

    Most of the courses, content, etc that I've gone through talk about ways to minimize the unsubscribe rate. Is there a reason for that other than keeping people on your list?

    My thinking is, if the person doesn't want to hear from you, give them a way out, they won't buy from you anyway.

    Thoughts?
    There are different schools of thought regarding unsubscribe rates. However, generally, if you can keep people on your list chances are they will buy. Granted that there will always be people on your list that will nevef buy and that's fine, but if people stay on your list there are ways to get them to eventually buy.

    No two lists are alike as each one has it's own unique set of traits, statistics, demographics, content (or lack thereof), etc.

    I keep people on most of my lists by providing outstanding value and unadvertised bonuses and freebies that actually provide a solution to a specific problem. In some markets I will hold 2 to 3 hour long webinars that give a s-load of great content which softens them to my offers.

    Then I prune my lists of unwanted folks sometimes by asking them to re-opt into a new list (I don't do that with customer lists though, only prospect lists).

    I never try to hide the unsubscribe link or put a ton of spacing so it's so far on the bottom that some people won't find it (btw, that's against the TOS of most autoresponder companies to do that).

    RoD
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  • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
    Perversely, a high unsubscribe rate could, in the short term, work in your favor.

    Many of the big systems rate email based on user interaction, for purposes of delivery. That includes opening the mail and clicking on links in it. Most people will do both in order to unsubscribe. So, it could mean a bump in the interaction scores.

    I wouldn't be surprised if this wasn't true for all the systems using that sort of ranking algorithm, but it fits the public descriptions. (There's always a lot of hidden voodoo in those systems, so who knows?)

    I'm not aware of any system that penalizes senders for high unsubscribe rates. I'd be surprised if they were unusually high, though, without also triggering higher than usual spam complaint rates, which are a whole other story.


    Paul
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    • Profile picture of the author RonnyRaygun
      Originally Posted by Paul Myers View Post

      I'd be surprised if they were unusually high, though, without also triggering higher than usual spam complaint rates, which are a whole other story.
      Just thinking out loud here, but couldn't you just put a link saying "Report Spam" and actually have that link go to the unsubscribe page?

      That might potentially divert would-be reporters, and raise the unsubscribe rate without a proportional rise in the spam complaints.
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      • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
        Originally Posted by RonnyRaygun View Post

        Just thinking out loud here, but couldn't you just put a link saying "Report Spam" and actually have that link go to the unsubscribe page?
        You could, but you really, really don't want to go there. Once you start down the "lying to your subscribers" path, you're history.


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  • Profile picture of the author sparkah
    who are you thinking will penalize you?

    google? alexa?
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    • Profile picture of the author IMPromocoder
      Originally Posted by sparkah View Post

      who are you thinking will penalize you?

      google? alexa?
      By your Avatar, looks like you're going to penalize him...
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    • Profile picture of the author RonnyRaygun
      Originally Posted by Bruce Wedding View Post

      My thought is, you're worrying about stuff that hasn't even happened. Why not think about how to build the list and start doing the things to make it happen and quit thinking about the things that haven't.
      Way ahead of you. I don't know how my list compares to the general IM community, but I got my first optins over President's Day weekend. I'm more concerned about losing my list. Average subscriber on the two largest lists cost me $0.03, and that figure will go down as time progresses until I launch another traffic campaign.



      Originally Posted by sparkah View Post

      who are you thinking will penalize you?

      google? alexa?
      The autoresponder companies.
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  • Profile picture of the author sparkah
    So... i gotta admit...

    I'm a total NOOB when it comes to autoresponders...

    why would you use one? why would the companies penalize you?

    I guess i just dont understand the pros and cons?
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Originally Posted by sparkah View Post

      why would the companies penalize you?
      To protect their other customers and ultimately their own businesses.

      They rely on their deliverability, and if enough of their customers' subscribers complain of spam (not what this thread's asking about, although there may often be a correlation there), those subscribers' ISP's will quickly stop delivering the autoresponder company's emails. So "avoiding spam reports" is absolutely essential, when sending out bulk email. An autoresponder company is (among other things) lending you the use of one of its own IP numbers to handle your outgoing mail, and you need not to abuse that, otherwise they can't afford to continue to extend that facility to you.

      I've never heard of any autoresponder company penalizing someone for high unsubscription rates, and I don't really see why they'd want to.

      But in reality a high unsubscription rate is surely likely to be accompanied by some spam reports? And that would certainly be bad news.

      It's a good thing, though, to make it really easy for your subscribers to unsubscribe if they want to. They're no use to you anyway, if they do want to unsubscribe. And anything that avoids spam reports helps.
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      • Profile picture of the author HeySal
        Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

        To protect their other customers and ultimately their own businesses.

        They rely on their deliverability, and if enough of their customers' subscribers complain of spam (not what this thread's asking about, although there may often be a correlation there), those subscribers' ISP's will quickly stop delivering the autoresponder company's emails. So "avoiding spam reports" is absolutely essential, when sending out bulk email. An autoresponder company is (among other things) lending you the use of one of its own IP numbers to handle your outgoing mail, and you need not to abuse that, otherwise they can't afford to continue to extend that facility to you.

        I've never heard of any autoresponder company penalizing someone for high unsubscription rates, and I don't really see why they'd want to.

        But in reality a high unsubscription rate is surely likely to be accompanied by some spam reports? And that would certainly be bad news.

        It's a good thing, though, to make it really easy for your subscribers to unsubscribe if they want to. They're no use to you anyway, if they do want to unsubscribe. And anything that avoids spam reports helps.

        This.

        Keeping hostages isn't really kewl for your business, either. You might think you're getting away with something when you hold subscribers hostage - but if I want to unsubscribe and you don't give me a way to get off your list, I send it to the server, who usually can figure out how to get me off of it.

        In every aspect of your business - it's more important to think about how to make your customers happy to patronize you instead of thinking about how you can force them to stick around if they don't want to. If you are thinking of your customers, you won't be worried about moot questions like this one.
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  • Profile picture of the author HelpingYouBeAnExpert
    Just don't have a high complaint rate
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  • Profile picture of the author Shaun OReilly
    Originally Posted by RonnyRaygun View Post

    Most of the courses, content, etc that I've gone through talk about ways to minimize the unsubscribe rate.
    If a course recommends that you MINIMIZE your unsubscribe
    rate, then it's probably been written by an inexperienced
    e-mail marketer.

    Though counter-intuitive, your goal should be to put out
    strong content and offers that strongly attract or repel
    people from your list.

    One of the biggest mistakes that many list builders make
    is to 'play it safe' by putting out mild content with little
    or no offers - partially to minimize unsubscribes.

    My goal as an e-mail marketer is to push the envelope
    to more strongly attract the true believers and repel
    the non-believers (and get them to unsubscribe).

    Dedicated to mutual success,

    Shaun
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    • Profile picture of the author Coby
      Originally Posted by Shaun OReilly View Post

      If a course recommends that you MINIMIZE your unsubscribe
      rate, then it's probably been written by an inexperienced
      e-mail marketer.

      Though counter-intuitive, your goal should be to put out
      strong content and offers that strongly attract or repel
      people from your list.

      One of the biggest mistakes that many list builders make
      is to 'play it safe' by putting out mild content with little
      or no offers - partially to minimize unsubscribes.

      My goal as an e-mail marketer is to push the envelope
      to more strongly attract the true believers and repel
      the non-believers (and get them to unsubscribe).

      Dedicated to mutual success,

      Shaun
      I agree with Shaun... I actually encourage unsubs...

      If they are unsubbing they either don't like your or your marketing style - so I'm glad to see them go

      Cheers,
      Coby
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  • Profile picture of the author theurbantwist
    I'm currently running a contest where people enter by signing up for my email newsletter with mailchimp and in 2 weeks I have over 1,200 signups and still counting.

    I sent the first email newsletter last Friday and it had a 3.6 percent unsubscribe rate and MailChimp contacted me and warned me that my unsubscribe rate was high which felt odd to me because I didn't think it was. Last Friday, I sent an email to 900 people who signed up and 32 unsubscribed which to me was a win because most of the people on my list only signed up to enter contest. So I explained all of this to Mail Chimp and they removed my warning, and yesterday I sent another newsletter to now 1,213 people in my list, and so far only 26 has unsubscribed and brought my percentage down from 3.6 percent to 2.1 percent. And this time, no warning.

    I just hope this trend continues. As far as my emails that I send are concerned, I am not trying to sell them anything in the email. All I want them to do is read my blog posts and that's it. I send out edigests twice a week. I used to do that daily but I thought that was overkill. I'm going to build my list up to hopefully 10,000 within a couple of months and then maybe send out my edigest 3 times a week then.
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  • Profile picture of the author JimDucharme
    Always give people a clear path to the exit or they'll break windows to get out. Mark Brownlow of emailmarketingreports.com tested adding an unsubscribe link to the top of his emails years ago and found that his unsubscribe rate almost doubled (small test sampling though).

    Here's what he concluded: This is not a bad thing.

    • Every unsubscribe is potentially one less spam report.
    • Every unsubscribe is one less person likely to get annoyed at me and my website when getting another email.
    • Every unsubscribe is one less unwanted email cluttering up the airwaves and inboxes of this world.
    I'd rather have people opting out than hitting that spam button any day.


    Regards,
    jim
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